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The 65 — anyone who fought in the area from June 6 to Aug. 31 in 1944 was eligible for the all-expense journey– flew Thursday from Palm Beach International Airport to Roanoke, Va., then by bus for a private tour of this sprawling place of honor and memory, before heading to a hotel in nearby Lynchburg, Va.

Everywhere they went, people young and old lined their way to wave signs and U.S. flags and shout, “Thank you. Thank you.” Veterans on motorcycles followed their motorcade and local cops blocked traffic to let the heroes pass.

In Bedford Thursday, the veterans met 35 others who’d bused up from North Carolina.

They all gathered for a group shot, where they sat Thursday afternoon in bright sunlight, in folding chairs and wheelchairs, and sang 1940s tunes, and sweated, and urged photographers, from the press to grandchildren, to hurry up.

Above them: a giant arch with a single word: “Overlord.” It was Operation Overlord that sent 156,000 men racing into withering machine gun fire on the stark beaches of western France, taking the first steps toward wresting Europe from the Nazi.

Bordering the plaza: the flags of a dozen nations that participated in the invasion. Include those of armies-in-exile, including the French, given the profound privilege of participating in the attack to liberate their homeland.

Under the arch, inlaid in stone on the ground, a circle bearing the names of the landing zones, now household words in military history: Sword. Juno. Utah. And bloody Omaha.

Ask Nathaniel Johnson, how did he end up on Omaha Beach the day after the invasion? Wasn’t the army segregated in World War II?

The 93-year-old from West Palm Beach smiles. Didn’t matter, he said, to Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower. Or the guys shooting at him.

Johnson had come ashore, got behind the wheel of a truck, and spent a week, with little sleep, bringing desperate medical supplies to the wounded.

“I drove 24-7,” he said Thursday, sitting in his wheelchair beneath the “Overlord” arch.

He says he saw men cut in half by artillery shells; “they was crawling. begging. ‘Help me.’ Help me.'”

Behind the men: a giant sculpture. A pool represents the waters of the Atlantic into which soldiers leaped from landing crafts, sometimes jumping too early and drowning in too-deep water, weighted down by their gear. One soldier is waist-deep. Another lies face down, dead, at the edge of the wet sand. Two more help each other advance. Spurts of water represent bullets slamming into the sea around the soldiers.

At the edge, figures on a wall, representing Pointe-du-Hoc, the 100-foot cliff Army Rangers climbed to knock out machine-gunners. One has cleared the top. Others still struggle. One is frozen, falling backward and down in death.

Staff writer Eliot Kleinberg and photojournalist Bruce Bennett are traveling with South Florida World War II veterans on their special D-Day “Honor Flight” to Bedford, Va., and Washington D.C. Watch for their tweets, photos, blogs and stories.

About 100 World War II veterans from South Florida and North Carolina gather for a group picture Thursday at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., where 70th anniversary ceremonies take place today.